


swept up in your hurricane

by ideservetobeloved



Category: Dance Academy
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Kat Is A Good Friend, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25557817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideservetobeloved/pseuds/ideservetobeloved
Summary: Ever since Sammy had told him that he... liked him, Christian hadn't been able to see his best friend in the same way. Every time he interacted with him, he had to think about what he'd told him, and it was beginning to be very annoying. So he tried to avoid Sammy as much as possible, hoping that whatever was happening would just go away. It didn't really work out like he'd planned.
Relationships: Sammy Lieberman/Christian Reed
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> apparently corona makes me revisit all of my old obessions, soooooo i've been watching dance academy and even though i love and would die for sammy x ollie, sammy x christian has always been a very interesting pairing to me with a lot of potential. i had this unfinished draft sitting on my computer from like 2017, so i thought why not go over it again? this is probably going to be a two-parter (at least if i don't get too carried away, as i always do).
> 
> title is from 'about love' by MARINA

_“You’re not ditching me because you’re confused.”_

That’s what Christian had said. And Sammy had been fine with that. He had resigned himself to a life of having to be around Christian, breathe the same air as him, listen to Christian’s steady breathing at night when he was trying to fall asleep, dance in the same class as him and have to watch the way his muscles moved under the tight shirt he was wearing…

He had known it would be torture for him, but he also knew Christian was right. He was an asshole for leaving his friend because he couldn’t figure out his own confusing feelings, and so he had vowed never to avoid Christian because of this… _thing_ again.

So why did _Christian_ now seem to be the one avoiding him?

Out of frustration he kicked the door that Christian had fled out of a few seconds ago when Sammy had come in, a half-formed excuse about character dance practice on his lips. Ridiculous. Sammy didn’t remember a single time that Christian had ever practiced for character dance. Nobody did.

It had been this way for about a week, and now Sammy was even more sorry that he’d been avoiding Christian before because apparently it really, really sucked to be ignored by your best friend.

He flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Maybe Christian’s common sense had finally caught up with him and he had realized it was incredibly weird to be friends with a guy who had admitted to having… muffins for you. Worst of all, a guy who couldn’t even say the word _feelings_ and instead resorted to using weird code words for it.

Or maybe he had just realized he didn’t want to be friends with a guy who was into guys, period.

-

“Kat?”

“Huh?” Kat didn’t look up from where he was filing her toenails, sprinkling toenail residue over the entire communal coffee table.

 _This is a terrible idea_ , Christian thought.

“Can I tell you something?”, he said.

Apparently satisfied with her filing job, Kat wiggled her toes back and forth to contemplate them, then set them on the ground and finally looked up.

“I am all ears, resident brooding bad boy with a soft side.” She gestured to the empty armchair next to the one she was sitting in and pulled out a bottle of nail polish from god knows where.

_Yup, this is definitely a bad idea._

Nevertheless, he took a seat and quietly watched Kat for a moment as she unscrewed the lid of the bottle and began painting her toenails, her tongue stuck between her teeth in concentration.

What was he doing here? He didn’t even know what was wrong, he didn’t know how to put into words what was going on with him. Besides, it was one thing telling Kat about what was wrong with himself, it definitely wasn’t fair to drag Sammy into this and possibly reveal something about him against his will that he hadn’t been prepared to share yet.

He cleared his throat and started to rise from the chair. “Nevermind, I should probably just go.”

But Kat grabbed his sleeve to hold him back and softly but firmly pressed him down into his seat again. A drop of nail polish landed on the dark wood of the table and she cursed before screwing the bottle shut and trying to rub out the stain with her finger, which just caused it to smear and stained her fingers a bright red.

“Okay, this is hopeless. But seriously, what’s wrong?”

She shifted her position so she was facing Christian, and for some reason her face reminded him of his therapist, leaning over her desk and wanting him to open up about his feelings or something. He sighed.

“It's... pretty personal to someone else. It’s not my place to tell.”

“Okay, then... just tell me. You don’t have to use their name or say anything that might expose them. Maybe I can help!”

He sighed again. Apparently there was no way he was getting out of this. “Okay, um... So... There's this guy.” He started rubbing his temples, trying to get rid of the headache that was building up behind his forehead. This was definitely way too much drama for a Sunday morning.

“Oh god, how do I say this... So, um, he told me that he... liked me. Like, in a... crush sort of way.” He paused and glanced up at Kat to see her reaction. Something in her face shifted, only for a second, but it was over so fast that he wasn’t sure he hadn’t just imagined it.

“And uh... I don’t have a problem with it necessarily. Or at least I don’t want to. It’s just... Ever since then, I can’t look at him the same way. It’s like, every time he looks at me I wonder if he’s thinking about me _that way_ right now and I overanalyze everything he says to me and... It just makes everything so... _weird_. And I think he thinks I’m pushing him away because I’m disgusted by him or something, and I don’t want him to think that because that is... definitely not the case. But I just, I have no idea what to do, I only want everything to be the way it was before, and now I’m afraid it never will.”

Kat was silent for a long time, Christian intensely studying his fingers that were playing with his bracelet, refusing to look up. It was a bracelet that Sammy had given to him, one of those the street vendors at the boardwalk sold to naïve tourists for way too much money. Everything seemed to make him think of Sammy lately and it irritated him.

Finally, Kat took a deep breath and Christian glanced up, only to see her studying him with such an intense look in her eyes that he quickly averted his gaze again. “Have you ever thought about… maybe… examining if you could possibly reciprocate this guy’s feelings?” Definitely not the answer that he had expected. Or the one he was looking for, for that matter.

“No!” Even he noticed the defensive undertone in his outcry, and he really didn’t want to sound so offended, but he just couldn’t help it. “I’m not... No, that’s definitely not it. I like girls. Only girls.”

Kat scrutinized him with that _look_ again that felt like she was seeing right into his soul. He shied away, didn't want her to see whatever it was in there that she was trying to get to. Shaking his head, he got up. His knees were trembling and he felt a little nauseated.

“I shouldn’t have told you,” he choked, “I should have known you were just gonna spew bullshit like this, like you always do.”

He turned and walked away, trying his best to keep his shoulders straight and ignore the hurt look on Kat’s face that he had caught a glimpse of after he’d said that. Maybe it had been a little harsh, but that didn't mean it wasn’t true. He made a mental note not to come to Kat with any of his problems, ever.

Apparently, she didn’t know him at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Outside, a car drove by the Academy. The windows must have been rolled down, Christian could make out the sound of loud bass and drunken voices as it passed.

He rolled over again and let out an exasperated sigh. The air was humid and thick, making him sweat in a way even the whirring fan they had running the whole night couldn't prevent. He felt sticky and gross, the sheet clinging to his burning skin, Sammy's steady breathing way too loud in the quiet room.

A glance at his alarm clock told him it was four in the morning. He had to be up for Saturday class with Patrick in five hours. This was hopeless, he decided, snatching his ratty tank top and shorts from the day before off the floor and taking care not to wake up Sammy as he slipped out into the hallway. Hopefully, going outside for a bit would clear his head.

He paused in the middle of the stairway when he noticed someone sitting on the couch in the common room, hunched over a book. The warm glow from the floor lamp illuminated the person's fine blond hair, twisted into a messy bun.

Kat.

For a moment, he contemplated just turning around and ignoring her, she hadn't even noticed him yet. He felt bad for what he had said to her, yes, and he knew he would eventually have to apologize for it, but he was notoriously terrible at taking accountability for his actions, and he really, really, really did not want to deal with this right now.

Just as he had basically convinced himself to climb up the stairs again and just hop out of a window or something, Kat suddenly looked up and saw him awkwardly hovering on the steps. Immediately, her face fell and he could actually punch himself in the face right now for being the reason she looked like that. All he had wanted was some fresh air, Jesus.

“Hey”, he mumbled ruefully, taking a few halting steps down the stairs. “Why are you still up?”

She shrugged, pointing at the book in her lap. “I'm reading.”

He didn't mention that it was four a.m., or that they had class in the morning.

“What do you want, Christian?”, she asked a little irritatedly as he just continued to stand there, staring at her, getting the words ready in his head. This was _Kat_ , for god's sake, the one who was the easiest to talk to, who was so hard to offend because she didn't take anything seriously, and somehow he had managed to fuck it up with her anyway. _Good job, Christian._

“First of all… I’m really sorry about what I said yesterday,” he started hesitantly, watching Kat’s face carefully. “Or two days ago, I guess,” he added with a glance at his watch. He was fiddling with this stupid bracelet again. He should probably just take it off. All it did was distract him anyway.

Kat smiled. “No problem, it’s fine.” But he could see it wasn’t, could see it in the strained curve of her lips, in the little crease between her eyebrows. He knew her so well. Of course it wasn’t fine.

“No, really,” he started again after a moment. “It’s not fine. I’m sorry. I came to you asking for help and you were trying to do just that. I shouldn’t have said what I said and I’m sorry. It’s not even true.” He indicated a smile. “You don’t always spew bullshit. Sometimes it’s horseshit. Or dogshit, or birdshit…”

She closed her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh, but he knew that he had her now. “You’re an asshole, Christian Reed.”

“You love me, though”, he teased, throwing himself on the couch next to her and she rolled her eyes and shoved his shoulder, a smile playing at her lips.

“Just don't come to me for advice for your internalized homophobia anymore and we'll be fine”, she said, and he paused.

“I'm not homophobic.”

She gave him that _look_ again and he had no idea what he was missing or what she was trying to tell him, but it annoyed him. “I'm not!”

“I'm not saying you are, stupid.”

“You just said I was.”

“Did not.”

“Well, what did you mean then?”

She narrowed her eyes and studied his face for a moment, as if she was trying to gauge his reaction to what she had to say. “Promise you won't get mad again?”

He sighed. “I promise.”

She closed her book and seemed to think for a minute. “I know you were talking about Sammy the other day. He told me that he thinks he has feelings for you, and that he can never tell you because he thinks you'll hate him.”

Christian kept his eyes fixed on the scratched surface of the coffee table in front of them, trying not to show any emotion on his face, while he could feel Kat's gaze burning into him. It shouldn't have been a big surprise to him that Sammy had told Kat about this, she was his best friend after all, but it just felt... weird, knowing that they had talked about this, about  _him_ , this way.

“He told me you're ignoring him after he did tell you,” Kat continued, lowering her voice as if they were in danger of being overheard, “and that he thinks you don't want anything to do with him anymore because he grosses you out.” She swallows.

“But I know you don't hate him or think he's gross. I mean, you've been so close for a long time, sometimes it even looked a little closer than friends, I know how much he means to you. And I mean, it's normal for people to... to start feeling like that when they're spending a lot of time together.”

Her voice was little more than just a whisper now. “I think maybe you like him back and are afraid to admit it.”

Christian stayed quiet, his mind going a thousand miles an hour. His first instinct was to snap at Kat again, tell her to back the fuck off, and it took a lot of self-control to remind himself that hurting and pushing people away when they got uncomfortably close to him was not actually a good way of dealing with his problems.

“I don't know”, he mumbled. “I'm not gay, though.”

Kat sighed. “There's more than just  _straight_ and  _gay_ , you know? You could like boys and girls. I think people should be way more open to that stuff anyway. I mean, I used to have the biggest girl crush on Abigail, back when we were best friends. Doesn't make me gay, just makes me human.”

“I don't like boys, though.”

“Don't you really or have you just never thought about it?”

He chewed on that for a minute. It was true, he had never thought about it, because he had always known he'd been attracted to girls, and that had been it, hadn't it? He didn't need to know anything more.

He thought of being with Hannah, one of his girlfriends from before the Academy, little more than a summer fling really. He had liked her well enough though, and kissing her had felt nice, and he tried to imagine a guy in her place.

Almost automatically, his mind replaced  _guy_ with  _Sammy_ , and suddenly his head was filled with images: him and Sammy, walking across the beach, holding hands. Him and Sammy, making out in Sammy's bed, one ear listening for his mom's footsteps. His hands, slowly making their way down Sammy's back and under the hem of his t-shirt...

“What are you thinking?”, Kat snapped him out of his thoughts and he flinched, cheeks burning and heart beating loudly. What the hell had _that_ been?

“Uhm, I don't... I'm... I... maybe? I don't...”, he stammered. Kat waited patiently for him to collect his thoughts enough to form a coherent sentence, a knowing smile on her face. He wished she would stop that. Stop looking at him like she had him all figured out, like she knew him better than he knew himself.

How was he supposed to make sense of the chaos in his head?

“What am I supposed to do?”, he mumbled, more to himself.

“You could tell him”, she suggested, and he almost rolled his eyes because did she not understand how much he _could not do that?_

“Yeah, right.”

“I'm serious!”

“I wouldn't even know _what_ to tell him! I don't even know what I'm feeling!”

“Tell him exactly what's going on! That you need some time to figure it out but you think you might like him back! He'll understand, you know he will.”

_Of course he will,_ Christian thought,  _that's not the point._

“Yeah, but...” _I've never been into boys,_ he wanted to say. _People will talk,_ he wanted to say. And, _I couldn't look my mates from home in the eye. A ballet boy_ and _gay? They'll never let me hear the end of it._

He kind of wanted to die.

“I can't do that”, he whispered, suddenly feeling a little sick at the idea of having to tell Tara, _Tara_ out of all people, that he was actually dating her best friend now. Who was a boy.

“Why not?”, Kat prodded, and he buried his head in his hands. He was so tired. _“Just because”_ , he hisses. “You don't understand. I just can't.”

She sighed and got up from the couch. A look at his watch told him that it was almost five a.m. Already, the first morning light was starting to break through the curtains.

“Look. I get that it’s scary and that you’re worried about what people might think, and that’s valid. But your sexuality is such a small part of who you are, it shouldn’t be that important. You don't even have to 'come out' or whatever, not to anyone, not if you don't want to. Sammy will understand, you know that. I mean, he's just as confused as you are, probably. As I said, this doesn’t even have to mean you’re gay, I mean you liked Tara, so maybe you’re bisexual. Or you’re heterosexual and Sammy is the exception. Either way, you're in love with someone who is one of the most amazing people on the planet, and you already know they like you back. So many people don’t get something like that in their entire lifetime. So stop acting like it’s such a burden and do something about it, Jesus.”

And she left, leaving Christian alone with his jumbled thoughts and mental pictures of Sammy's hand in his, wondering how the hell he had found himself in this mess when everything had been fine just two weeks ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, I SAID this wasn't going to get away from me but it did, of course it did, so there's gonna be a third chapter actually (hopefully just a third). i just really love the idea of sammy and christian together, and just in general christian not being straight.
> 
> chapter 3 will probably take some time though (since i uploaded chapter 2 sooo quickly...) because i'm currently working on a few other fics as well and there's a lot of stuff i need to figure out before i can continue with this (i can't believe i'm actually writing dance academy fanfic in the year of our lord 2020)
> 
> okay bye, see you in another 6 months!


End file.
